“I swear, man. I’m getting treatment. My boss is happy about it. Even says he’ll save my job for me. So as soon as Lily is really settled back with her mom, I’m going in.”

“You better.”

Nir turned and walked back to the SUV. No one left behind.

Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42

ONE DAY LATER

LA PORTE, SOUTHEAST OF HOUSTON, TEXAS—DECEMBER 19, 2020—21:00 / 9:00 P.M. CST

The next night, the team drove up to the warehouse complex in a box truck. Yaron, Avigdor, and Nir sat in the cab. In the back with the cargo were the rest of the Kidon operatives, as well as Avigdor’s tech team. As the fence bounced open, Yaron rolled down the window. Cohen stepped out of the guard shack.

Looking at Nir, he said, “I can never thank you enough—”

“What’s done is done,” Nir said. Avigdor didn’t know about the events of the night before, and Nir wanted to keep it that way.

“Anyway, Lily asked me to give this to the older man.” He reached in with a small photo of the girl—a head shot, like the ones taken for yearbooks.

Yaron took the photo from his hand and slipped it into a cargo pocket on his pants. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

“Thank you. So the front door to the Marcos workshop is unlocked. Best you can, try to leave the place like you found it.”

Following the directions Cohen then gave them, they identified the correct building. The door was unlocked as promised, and Nir stepped in and turned on the lights. The teams immediately began unloading the truck. Nir had his Kidon team carry in the heavy rectangles of cement, leaving the moving of the explosives to the experienced hands of the tech team.

Inside, everything was exactly as Nicole described. Different stations had been established for each stage of the creation process. The area they were looking for was down to the right next to a series of three roll-up doors. This was where the finished products were prepared for shipping. The techs began identifying the paintings that matched the correct shipping addresses. Meanwhile, Nir sent Yaron and Doron to watch the unlocked door. He kept Dima and Imri close for any heavy lifting.

Avigdor walked toward him. “We have a problem. All the copies are accounted for and ready to ship, just as le Roux had discovered from the artist. However, the two originals aren’t here.”

Of course they aren’t, you idiot, Nir thought, chastising himself. Why would Alicia keep ten million dollars’ worth of paintings in a warehouse with so little security? I really need to talk with her about upgrading her workshop.

“Get your team working on the others. Let me make a call.”

Taking out his encrypted phone, he punched in a number. He could hear steel drums and laughter in the background even before he heard her voice.

“Nicole le Roux.”

“Nicole, Nir.”